Band or singer that best represents the music of the 70s

[Javasaurus]

There have already been some great mentions.

Personally -- when I think back to the 70's -- the Eagles stand out on the music landscape.

[Zero Hunter]

I was just going to say the Eagles. The 70's were the singer/songwriter decade more than anything else. Acts like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, and Jackson Brown better sum up the decade than most others.

[numberthirty]

Or maybe you should not take it so literal. The point is, no white artists were to have their records destroyed, the examples given do not matter, they just describe the range of music being spared because of racism.

Sure...

Not take the entire piece literally.

While I'm not going to say there is nothing to what the article is saying, it looks a lot like someone came up with a conclusion and then cooked up some "Evidence" that makes right around "Zero" sense to anyone who thinks about it for more than a half a second.

[numberthirty]

Ironically, Bowie's career got a little lackluster in the early 80s and didn't take off again until Chic's Nile Rodgers gave him a huge hit with "Let's Dance!"

Makes sense, Bowie was definitely someone who could appreciate talent, and sought it out.

While I'm not going to take anything away from Rogers, it is worth noting that Bowie picked out Stevie Ray Vaughn to play on that tune and it would be completely different without his part.

Whole other tune...

[numberthirty]

Shoutout to the late, GREAT Bernard Edwards who left us waaay to soon. Man, Nile Rodgers, that is all.


Anyway, 3 pages in and no mention of the golden era of THE FUNK!?!? Parliment, EW&F, Issac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, none of that ring any 70's bells... Ban yourselves, all of you.

My favorite group of the 70's is The Ohio Players and so I'll admit they may not represent the entirety of the decade. If I cast a non-FUNK vote it would be Chicago then, I feel they were a cooler version of Fleetwood Mac if you are talking about the most mainstream acts of the 70's.

Uh, about that...

You might want to double check the first page...

Even that is more complicated than it would seem.

Let's say you were going to try to narrow it down to genres/sub-genres that arguably came into being during the seventies. You could probably make a decent case for -

- Disco
- Country Rock
- Punk Rock

- coming into being during the seventies.

If you tried to go with a band from one of those categories, you'd be setting aside Stevie Wonder's albums from Singed, Sealed, & Delivered through Songs In They Key Of Life when you did.

Which sounds crazy when you say it out loud or type it out.

And, that's just Stevie Wonder. You could do the exact same for the seventies runs of Parliment/Funkadelic, AC/DC, or Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band.

[numberthirty]

Sure, for homophobic white guys sticking their heads in the sand.

For the rest, the 70s were just as revolutionary as the 60s. Female solo artists were around much more, and now they were writing their own songs, like Carole King and Joni Mitchell.

And I can't stress enough how much it meant to queer people. Johnny Mathis never had the kind of freedom Sylvester, Tony Washington (of the Dynamic Superiors) or Carl Bean had. And once Disco was murdered, it was right back into the closet with black artists like Luther Vandross.

Any one of us trying to decide that we actually speak for "The Rest" is kinda goofy.

While I absolutely get where you are coming from about disco and female singer/songwriters...

To decide that...

- Seventies Progressive Rock
- Seventies Punk Rock(Heck just the Rocket From The Tombs/Pere Ubu/Dead Boys corner)
- Alice Cooper Alone
- The Jackson Five Alone
- Willie Nelson Alone
- Glam Rock
- Parliment/Funkadelic Alone

- were not every bit as revolutionary and representative of the time just doesn't make much sense.

Never mind the discussion we could have about just how much punk rock let women/minorities/folks who were not straight into the movement.

Same goes for folks who were not straight and glam rock.

[numberthirty]

They took the song, 30. And rapped over it. That is a bit different from hearing a Roxy Music song and creating a whole new sound from it.

As for this...

Let's get real for a minute. It just happened to be Chic. The entire genre would have come into being even if you took Chic out of the equation. Too many things were happening to seriously entertain the idea that it would not have happened without Chic.

So, yeah.

It's not that different from seeing Roxy Music playing into putting the idea of doing something similar in Nile's mind.

As for "Whole New Sound", sorta agree/sorta disagree. While there is an argument to be made for that it was new, it was absolutely using components that had come before(Chic wasn't the first musical outfit that ever used an orchestral element).

[numberthirty]

One other band that is worth a mention even if you can make a pretty solid argument for that they were not that "Representative" of the time...

Big Star.

That bands initial early seventies run was a lot like The Velvet Underground had been before them. It's all over the place, even if you aren't aware that it is.

[numberthirty]

Ironically, Bowie's career got a little lackluster in the early 80s and didn't take off again until Chic's Nile Rodgers gave him a huge hit with "Let's Dance!"

One other small thing about that...

While Scary Monsters(and Super Creeps) might not have been the commercial success that Let's Dance was, it is absolutely a pretty brilliant artistic statement.

Also worth noting that the core of his band on that album(Dennis Davis/George Murray/Carlos Alomar) was non-white musicians from arguably impressive musical background.

[KOSLOX]

One other small thing about that...

While Scary Monsters(and Super Creeps) might not have been the commercial success that Let's Dance was, it is absolutely a pretty brilliant artistic statement.

Also worth noting that the core of his band on that album(Dennis Davis/George Murray/Carlos Alomar) was non-white musicians from arguably impressive musical background.

THatreminds me of that clip of Bowie calling out Mark Goodman for MTV excluding black artists.

[numberthirty]

THatreminds me of that clip of Bowie calling out Mark Goodman for MTV excluding black artists.

Man...

You have no clue how many times I have watched that clip, and almost fell over laughing since I realized that it might be on the YT.

It was like watching someone's dad give them a talking to.

[KOSLOX]

Nile Rodgers also produced Madonna's "Like a Virgin" and "Material Girl" and his guitar riffs were everywhere a few years ago thanks to his cooperation with Daft Punk and Pharrell Williams, Get Lucky.

Puffy Daddy owes half of the 90s to him.

[numberthirty]

Just to make note of one thing that it feels like Nile never really gets credit for...

That pair of late-eighties/early-nineties B-52s records that he produced(Cosmic Thing/Good Stuff) is incredibly solid production work that isn't really the first thing that comes to mind when folks bring up that pair of records.

While I don't want to slight Don Was, it never feels like Rogers gets much credit for his work there.

[Nine Crocodile]

One other small thing about that...

While Scary Monsters(and Super Creeps) might not have been the commercial success that Let's Dance was, it is absolutely a pretty brilliant artistic statement.

Also worth noting that the core of his band on that album(Dennis Davis/George Murray/Carlos Alomar) was non-white musicians from arguably impressive musical background.

Not just that album. Those guys were the core of Bowie's band from Station to Station to Scary Monsters. Alomar was a big part of Young Americans (he co-wrote "Fame" and, IIRC, brought in Luther Vandross, who ended up singing on it.) and some later records too.

[Nine Crocodile]

One other band that is worth a mention even if you can make a pretty solid argument for that they were not that "Representative" of the time...

Big Star.

That bands initial early seventies run was a lot like The Velvet Underground had been before them. It's all over the place, even if you aren't aware that it is.

They were brilliant (I recall a six-month period where 3rd/Sister Lovers did not leave my record player) but they were a reaction to the '70s as much as a '70s band. Same with The Raspberries.